Crop Monitoring in Europe – the MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System Stefan Niemeyer Monitoring Agricultural Resources Unit, Joint Research Centre EXPO Milano, 09 October 2015
Overview 1. Why Crop Monitoring in Europe? 2. The MARS Approach 3. Products and outreach
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Key figures in EU Agriculture Main agricultural areas across Europe Source: JRC MARS DB, grid cells with at least 30 % of arable land
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Key figures in EU Agriculture Main agricultural areas across Europe Source: JRC MARS DB, grid cells with at least 30 % of arable land
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Key figures in EU Agriculture
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Key figures in EU Agriculture EU common wheat export (incl. flour and groats)
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Yield variability
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MCYFS - MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System Crop monitoring in Europe
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MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System
User requirements • • • •
independent, timely, scientific and traceable crop yield forecasts for all EU Member States (EU28) and EU neighbouring countries for the main arable crops in Europe (currently 12 crops)
This information is utilised by the Commission services for the following main purposes: 1) Input for the crop balance sheets 2) Input for the Early Estimate System of Eurostat 3) Assessment of climatic conditions and potential impacts of particular weather events in Member States (e.g. droughts, heat waves) 4) Monitoring of crop conditions and forecasting in third countries
The activities are covered by the European Regulation 1306/2013 and financed by the EC.
MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System
…..translate into system requirements 1) Full European coverage (and neighbouring countries) with comparable data and methods 2) Information availability in near real time 3) Comprehensive and common spatial framework 4) No single-source system that may miss key events, but use of several sources and methodologies in parallel 5) Redundancy and synergies between methodologies, convergence of evidence 6) Traceability and accepted procedures to allow for staff turnover (ISO 9001 certification)
MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System •
ICT-based, sophisticated system tailored to support yield forecasting
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Based on four pillars: agro-meteorology, crop growth modelling, remote sensing, agricultural statistics
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Near-real time context: dataflow, data processing, analysis, bulletin production
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Constantly innovation and refinement ongoing to keep the system updated and at the state-of-the-art
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Current accuracy: < 5% overall yield estimates in EU
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Resources: team of analysts and project management at JRC, inhouse ICT support, outsourced model infrastructure and technical routine work (MARSOP consortium)
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Scientific networking with universities, research institutions, national ministries, regional offices, etc. throughout Europe
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Key is the analyst and the expert knowledge available 11
MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System Common spatial framework
CGMS database
Weather monitoring
MARS DB
Site and crop specific information to tailor the system to the area/crop of interest
Crop growth simulation
CGMS/ BioMA Production of 10‐day biophysical indicators
Time series of crop specific area/yield statistics
Statistical yield forecasting
CoBo
Qualitative analysis SPIRITS
Production of daily meteorological indicators
Vegetation monitoring Remote sensing
Operational data processing by ALTERRA, VITO and METEOCONSULT
Expert judgement and decisions required
Quantitative analysis Crop yield forecast
Toolboxes and software CGMS / BioMA MARS viewer SPIRITS ControlBoard 12 (CoBo)
Crop Monitoring in Europe
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Crop Monitoring in Europe
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Crop Monitoring in Europe
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Crop Monitoring in Europe
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Crop Monitoring in Europe
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Crop Monitoring in Europe
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Crop Monitoring in Europe
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Team of Experts at JRC Remote Sensing + GIS expert Country Analyst
Country Analyst
Agrometeorologist
DB / ICT manager
Bulletin editor
Country Analyst
DB / ICT manager
Remote Sensing + GIS expert
Country Analyst
Country Analyst
Agrometeorologist Country Analyst
Statistical administrator
Bulletin editor
Country Analyst
Agrometeorologist
Country Analyst
Country Analyst DB / ICT manager
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Dissemination Bulletin / information dissemination
8 October 2015
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Dissemination •
MARS Bulletin, publicly available
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with global uptake by national services, news agencies, industry and trade, international organizations
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Dissemination > 15’000 downloads/a
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Dissemination > 15’000 downloads/a
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Dissemination
Web site statistics: Distribution of downloads by country
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Dissemination •
MARS Bulletin, publicly available
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with global uptake by national services, news agencies, industry and trade, international organizations
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Serves as input to the European contribution to the Agricultural Markets Information System (AMIS) at FAO (G20 initiative)
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Part of the Group of Earth Observation Global Agricultural Monitoring activity (GEOGLAM) Crop Monitor
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In addition, data dissemination through the AGRI4CAST resource portal at: http://agri4cast.jrc.ec.europa.eu , incl. •
Gridded meteorological data (“MARS database”)
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Crop masks, crop calendars
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Further resources incl. climate change simulations 26
Thank you for your attention!
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